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MARQ Expedition keeps restarting on higher altitudes

Dear All,

Today, I went hiking where the start point was at 1550m. When I selected the Walk activity and applied the course I had created on the GC website and started the activity, a couple of seconds later the watch restarted. So, I tried to

- hard reboot the watch
- remove it from the phone, factory reset and add it to the phone again
- use the Hike app

and nothing helped. In fact, there were a couple of times when I couldn't even choose the activity, the watch restarted when I pressed the Start button. Once, I managed to select the activity, but I wanted to check something so I pressed the Back button; the watch restarted.

Eventually, when I spent more than half an hour to make it work instead of doing what I actually went to, that is hiking, I gave it up and used my Ambit3 which luckily I had with me.

The only thing I managed to start was the Track me activity which basically worked, but I had no navigation, and honestly, I didn't dare to try, I was happy (frustrated :/) that it didn't even restarted.

When I finished the hiking and started to come down from the mountain I tried to check the elevation widget to see if it gives correct result, but as soon as I pressed the Down button, yes, the watch restarted. I was at 1200m at that time. Then I remembered I had tried to check the Maps on two of my flights the previous week where I had had the same experience; continuous restarts.

My next target was a small town at around 550m. I started the Walk activity and everything was perfect. I tried with the Hike activity with loading the course, kept pressing buttons all the time, no restart at all. So it seems my Expedition keeps restarting when the altitude is higher that probably 1000m.

Has anyone had similar issue? Garmin-Heath, do you have any suggestion if it can be a software of a hardware issue? This is the 3rd replacement item due to issues with the previous ones and while I like the watch design and the functions I already regret to buy it and I am at the point when I feel it was a complete waste of £1500. So please, give me some advice what to do now.

Thank you,
Zoltan

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0 crt_hun over 4 years ago in reply to Garmin_ODQA

Hi Mel, Garmin_ODQA

Thank you for the heads-up.

In the meantime, I have sent a message to the Support Team with the details and they confirmed that the watch is faulty and they created an RMA ticket.

Last week after the RMA was created I requested to go to the Service Centre in person and check if the replacement item works properly with some basic tests and checks as it will be the 4th (!) replacement item since I bought the watch and honestly I am getting really tired to spend more time and money for the continuous replacements. They have not responded so far.

If you could help me to make it happen I would really appreciate it. I think that would be good for everyone.

Back to your question, I could re-produce the faulty behaviour every single time I went to a higher altitude or had to flight somewhere. So, once the item is replaced, the engineers can test it anytime they want

Thank you,
Zoltan

0 Steve over 4 years ago in reply to Garmin_ODQA

Hi Mel, I have not had a chance to hike at altitude again yet. I live on the coast in LA and, try as I might, don't get enough time off to drive into the San Gabriels so often. I have a weekend backpacking trip planned for saturday to 9-10,000ft, but we're on fire watch again with the Santa Ana's blowing...
Steve

0 crt_hun over 4 years ago

Just an update about the situation if anyone is interested.

For some weird reasons, after they had already admitted it (and created an RMA), Garmin Support now thinks it is not a hardware issue regardless the facts that it seems apart from me no other MARQ user has this issue. They think it is a software problem even though I have been factory reset the watch probably more time since I have it than all my other electronic devices altogether.

So they requested me to send the Garmin folder, which I already did 2 months ago. I did it again. In the meantime, I managed to lost an activity completely, because the watch did not write anything to its storage. Probably also a software issue, I suppose.

Any comments/questions I made since I have been emailing with them were being completely ignored, none of them was answered. Not even one.

So it seems we are not getting anywhere, more than 3 months passed, I still have a defective item, RMA is gone and they are not willing to help but wasting my time. That would be the 'premium' category I suppose. Lesson learned.

I am now waiting for their next response, but if I am still without answers or any kind solution in a reasonable time I am going to escalate it to a regulatory level.

0 8937498 over 4 years ago in reply to crt_hun

To be fair they seem to be trying, while not perfectly, to fix the issue

0 nyqand over 4 years ago

This thread reminds me of a bug I had on my Fenix 5. I do not remember if it was fixed. And of course it may not be related at all. As I commute to the office on my bike, I go to activities and select “bike”. A couple of times, I did get a GPS lock wit altitude around 30 meters (correct), but I didn’t start the activity until I had been moving a short while downhill (to some 23 meters). At the moment I did press start, the altitude jumped to 600 meters, and stayed there. The altitude curve was correct, but not the altitude. Nor did the F5 crash.

This may not be related at all, but you could perhaps check if you do like I did, start to move and shift position in altitude, between activating GPS and position lock and actually starting the activity?

As I noted earlier in this thread, I did a manual calibration to 2000 meters, and that worked. I did see on the 945 forum, that there are ppl having problems with this. So obviously this is a problem for multiple devices.

0 4519125 over 4 years ago

I got my Marq aviator about 5 months ago. I have had no issues with crashes etc until this week. The only thing that has changed is my location - the watch started to act up in the middle of a flight to Denver.

I am now skiing in colorado and the watch continues crashing when doing almost anything - BUT only while using a 3rd party watch face.

If I jump in quickly enough after a restart I can change the watch face back to a stock face, and the crashing stops.

I have tried a bunch of different watch faces and it does not seem to matter which 3rd party watch face is being used, it happens with any/all of them.

Has there been any resolution or progress with this issue?

0 crt_hun over 4 years ago in reply to 4519125

I had different issue as the watch always crashed on higher elevation even after a fresh factory reset without using any CIQ apps.

Eventually, Garmin Support replaced it and since then I have not experienced any similar crash.

In your case, I would try to factory reset the watch and not installing any CIQ apps just to confirm if it works well without them.If it's still crashing that's a Support issue.

I would also try the new beta firmware if you have not done yet, it seems to be much better than any other recently.

0 philipshambrook over 4 years ago in reply to 4519125

If it's a 3rd party watch face causing the problem then you need to take that up with the developer of the watch face(s). My understanding is that, as far as Garmin is concerned, this problem was fixed with a recent update.

If you know it's a 3rd party watch face then the obvious thing to do is to stop using it. By all means let Garmin know that 3rd party watch faces are casing the crash, but the developers need to work out a fix and perhaps also take it up with Garmin.

0 4519125 over 4 years ago in reply to 4519125

Just to update my original issue, the crashing is NOT fixed with the factory watch faces - it just stopped happening on every button press.

Yesterday during skiing the watch froze up twice, and crashed/rebooted itself twice losing my run information in the process.

My girlfriend has a Fenix 6 Sapphire and it's actually doing the same thing! She could not even click "save" at the end of the activity without the watch crashing, and hers was just factory reset and with a stock watch face as well.

Ski tracking was the main reason we got these watches, and so far it has been a huge disappointment.

We will try updating the watches to a beta version, but the recent beta is labeled "NOT for MARQ Aviator" which is of course the one I have.

0 LizaM over 4 years ago

Hello! Did anyone figure out a fix for this issue? I purchased a Forerunner 945 just over a month ago, and I experienced my first activity crash on my run today. The screen went black, and a green triangle popped up.

It's interesting learning about the potential issue with elevation since I live in Denver. If the crash is caused by higher elevations, it seems like a pretty useless watch to have living 5K+ feet above sea level.